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Germany rejects calls to scrap Russia's 2018 World Cup

The German government on Wednesday rejected calls to stop Russia from hosting the 2018 World Cup. The vice-chair of Germany's CDU party, Michael Fuchs, had earlier floated the idea of hosting the event jointly in Germany, France and Italy as an additional sanction against Russia.

Britain wants to negotiate with Brussels the end date of the Brexit transition period - without saying what their preferred end date would be. The UK's position paper disagrees with the EU on other key points too.